we are walled in at the end of someone else’s corridor

and you talk about the death of a man you loved

while our room suffers no interruptions of itself

but this man has been on your mind

like       you say             his soles have been pressing

on the surface of thought

 

he is not my father

 

and       you say            the problem with that kind of love –

the one between you and this other man –

is that it treads all over the senses until

seeing doesn’t really feel like seeing anymore

 

we can’t know from where we are within these walls

if anyone might still refer to now as night or daytime

and the mono-ness of the room hushes us

which leads me to thinking about

when i’ll next be savouring the weight of someone else’s body 

and what it will be like when you’re gone

 

like is it possible that my life without you will ever replace my life with you

 

can you imagine absolute nothingness            i ask 

no no   you say            but perhaps nothingness imagines us

maybe death is a nothingness that conjures all our disappearances

 

i have this persistent feeling that my sight is darkening

that i am the night

that it is not the result of orbits 

but a well filling up from the bottom of my stomach

the fluid rising

spilling out of my open mouth and into the world

around me

 

this room has no sense of pity for us i say

it doesn’t        you agree          and our eyes can’t offer any alternatives

as we only see the limits of what we’ve been given

something every prison cell    every gaoler     relies on

so we won’t      with our eyes  be able to bring down the walls’ regime

but windows might

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